Egypt’s Christian heritage is one of the oldest in the world. With a population of about 85 million, 11 million Egyptians would claim to be Christian, about 3.5 million are Evangelical. This is a land which Jesus Christ Himself came to when He was only a boy. It was later evangelised by the Gospel writer John Mark in the first century A.D. Since then, the Coptic Church has been a prominent religion.

Islam invaded Egypt in the 7th century. By the 10th century, Arabic was the official language. Today Islam makes up around 87 percent of the population. According to Operation World, Egypt is arguably the intellectual centre of Sunni Islam. The Muslim Brotherhood is still alive in Egypt, even though the current government opposes them.

John Mark, who wrote the Gospel of Mark, planted the first Church in Alexandria, Egypt, in the first century. The Christians in Egypt have survived 1,400 years of Islamic persecution. Since the explosion of the so-called Arab Spring, attacks on churches in Egypt have multiplied exponentially. Almost daily we are learning of more churches bombed and burned by Muslim mobs in Egypt.

Persecuted Christians in Egypt express shock at Western governments and Christian churches that are generally so silent about this rising tsunami of Islamic hatred and violence against Christians, in what was the birthplace of the Christian Church. Generally speaking, not only have the secular media failed to report on this horrific persecution of Christians in the Middle East, but so too have the Christian media. "Your ignorance and indifference is killing our people!"declared one bishop.

What is Going on in Egypt

Egyptians are saying that American President Obama owes the people of Egypt an apology and the taxpayers of America a refund! The population of Egypt have overwhelmingly rejected the Muslim Brotherhood regime of Mohamed Morsi. After over 20 million Egyptians signed a petition pleading for the removal of Morsi and his dictatorial regime, and over 17 million people marched in the streets, throughout Egypt, calling for the removal of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood radicals, the Egyptian military have stepped in, placed Morsi and over a hundred of his key leaders in custody. The Egyptian Army Commander, General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, announced that Morsi will be replaced by the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of Egypt, pending new elections.

Disinformation

It is just over two and a half years since the launch of the so-called Arab Spring. The Middle East is notoriously unstable and volatile, yet the world media rushed to romanticise the protests and violence in the streets as "the Arab Spring!" Enthusiastic reporters gushed over how this was a democratic movement of freedom, just like the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain, which brought unprecedented freedoms to Eastern Europe. News Reports and articles on radio, TV and in newspapers and magazines worldwide, trumpeted the flourishing of democracy, pluralism, freedom and tolerance in the Middle East! A new era of democratic freedom was dawning! Or so the mass media would have had us believe.

A Pattern of Persecution

Wherever Christians live alongside large numbers of Muslims they are under relentless attack. Even in Africa, where Christianity has spread the fastest over the last century, Islamic persecution of Christians is pervasive. Even in countries where Christians outnumber Muslims, such as Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania, churches are being regularly attacked by Muslim Jihadists.

Eradicating Christianity

North Africa and the Middle East, the birthplace of Christianity, now has the smallest regional Christian minority in the world. Over 93% of the Middle East is Muslim, 1.6% Jewish and less than 4% Christian. Less than 0.6% of the world’s 2.2 billion Christians now live in the Middle East and North Africa. And that number is plummeting. The London Guardian has observed: “The religious ecology of the Middle East looks more fragile than ever, as the Arab Spring gives way to Christian Winter.”